Desperation
by Glasskey
Summary: Elliot disappears during the course of an investigation into rumors regarding missing college students, some of whom have been gone for months. Olivia leads the frantic search for her partner. Sequel, Fine Again, now being published in January, 2007.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own or have any connection to the SVU characters or settings, nor do I claim to. I actually have not seen many episodes of this show, so if my story is in any way similar to something else someone has written, either for the show or for this website, I can assure you that the similarity is purely accidental and coincidental.

This story was written in the style of an episode, complete with procedural details. It also has perhaps more character focus than most episodes. Although the themes in this story can be expressly or implicitly intense and violent, I do not think that the scenes in this story are any more or less so than a typical episode of SVU. There's also no harsh language that couldn't be aired on network television. Nevertheless, my story is in keeping with the themes you see on this TV show, so please use the same discretion; I'm rating this "T", but it teeters at times on an "M" rating.

I'm a first-timer posting to this site, so please pardon any accidental formatting problems. I wrote this story for my own entertainment, and hopefully for yours. I anticipate 3 parts to this story; here is the first.

Olivia and Elliot fumbled through the stacks of papers on their desks, sometimes exchanging documents, in the course of trying to organize. Behind them, Fin and Munch were about to pull their coats on, starting another long day in a series of days that had demanded overtime due to the increased case load that seemed to pile up recently. Cragen promptly stopped the activity of all four.

"I have another assignment. I need all of you on it, and it takes priority."

The detectives collectively grunted.

"We're already pushing back cases; you want us to push them back even further?" Elliot's protestations spoke for everyone.

"Just for a couple of days. It's about those missing college guys."

They knew what Cragen was talking about. At first, the disappearances were sporadic and widely spaced; one boy wouldn't show up for class at one University then, a few weeks later, another student at another college hundreds of miles away would report that his roommate never seemed to be at home anymore. The disappearances occurred at colleges all over the state, with only one or two being reported in New York City, and it had taken a while before anyone connected the disappearances until investigators from the various jurisdictions began exchanging notes. When they realized that all these young men had last been seen at parties, this common thread prompted officials to issue a warning on the evening news, and this in turn had created a minor panic among college students and their parents.

Nevertheless, these disappearances had not been the immediate concern of the SVU detectives. The first several disappearances had been far outside their jurisdiction, and to date most still were. Also, they had too much on their plates already, and it would take days to get up to speed on the details of the investigation already in progress. Cragen anticipated this complaint and explained.

"The primary detectives on this case are still heading up the investigation state-wide; it's just that a rumor is going around that these guys were taken by some underground S&M cult, and they need extra hands to follow up on the rumor."

Fin scoffed. "No such thing. We would've heard about something like that." The others muttered in agreement.

"Yeah, I know." Cragen said. "It's just that there's a lot of heat on this right now, and they want to be able to tell the parents that every lead was followed up. So just go out there and talk to the people who are into that sort of thing, confirm what you know, then we'll get back to our own business."

Now all four detectives dragged on their coats as they plodded towards the door.

----------------------

The plan was reached that Munch and Fin would talk to the patrons and proprietors of the more hardcore shops, bars and "specialty" hangouts in one part of the city, while Olivia and Elliot would do the same for another area where such places were known to flourish. The pairs traveled from one place to another and, as they anticipated, everyone they asked about the rumor responded with amusement and derision.

"I resent being made an object of ridicule by people who think rubber underwear is the epitome of sexy." Munch said, when Olivia called him to check on their progress.

"The captain only said a couple of days. We'll finish up tomorrow and then we can get back to real work." Olivia's words helped carry everyone through the rest of the day, and they set out to finish up their thankless tasks.

When Elliot and Olivia opened the door to the last shop on their list for that day, a delicate bell announced their arrival with a lighthearted ring that seemed out of place in this bizarre galley of fetishes and extreme interests. The heavily pierced clerk took several moments to look up from her magazine of celebrity photos to acknowledge the detectives standing over her.

"Have you been helped?" The clerk's tone put an annoyed emphasis on the last word, making it clear that the last thing she wanted to do was help them or the lone customer who was browsing towards the back of the store. The detectives showed her their badges and introduced themselves.

"We're investigating the disappearances of those college kids. You've heard of that? We got a tip that their disappearances might be related to some sort of secret society that's into this kind of stuff." Elliot gestured generally to the store to punctuate his point.

"Yeah, I've heard about that rumor, but I don't know of anybody who would actually do that. There are plenty of people out there who want to get beaten and violated. No sense in risking going to prison by doing that to someone who's not into it." The girl sounded bored, as though she had recited this information several times before. Her acknowledgement of the rumor gave the detectives pause, however, and they exchanged a glance. She was the first person who had admitted any knowledge of the mere rumor.

"Where did you hear about this?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know. Around. The customers like to stand up here and talk sometimes."

"What did they say about this group?" Elliot followed.

"That they're big thing is going too far. Like, maiming people and doing stuff that nobody in the legit circles would approve of. Like, this one story I heard, they cut out this guy's eye and used…"

Both Elliot and Olivia held up their hands to stop her there. They didn't need to have the rest of that story explained to them.

"Which customers have you heard talk about this? Can you remember their names?" Olivia asked.

"Uh, despite what you may think about someone who works in a store like this, I'm not really into that scene. I'm pretty vanilla, especially compared to these people who come in here. I mean, if this is what they like, then that's cool with me, but I don't hang out with them or know them personally. I'm just trying to work my way through college."

Elliot got a flash of his daughters going to college and the thought of them becoming like this girl. He pushed the disturbing thought into the back of his mind.

"Okay, well, if you think of anything else call us." Elliot handed her his card and he and his partner departed the scene. Once outside, Olivia stopped.

"What do you think?"

"So she heard the same gossip we did. It's still just rumor. It had to come from somewhere. If there was some kind of crazy conspiracy of sadistic kidnappers out there, I really think there'd be more to go on, don't you? People can't keep something like that secret for long."

Olivia nodded.

"No substantiation, nothing to substantiate," she said.

"Exactly."

The pair started along the sidewalk back to their car and noticed the descending dusk. Olivia checked her watch for what seemed to be the fiftieth time that afternoon, according to Elliot's count.

"Why don't we call it a day? I need to get home."

"What's so great at home?" Elliot asked. Olivia smiled reluctantly.

"I have a date."

"Olivia going on a date? Nope, doesn't register. What is that?"

"Shut up. It's this friend of a friend. I know it's a bad idea, but I have to get out of the house. All any of us have been doing lately is working and sleep."

"I'll drop you off."

----------------------

The next morning, Olivia paced her desk, arms folded. As she predicted, the date the night before had turned out dull at best, and often irritating as she and her companion consistently contradicted each other during conversation. She just wanted to get her head back into work, but Elliot was running late. Cragen finally stepped out of his office and looked Olivia up and down.

"What are you still doing here? I thought you had more places to go. Munch and Fin left half an hour ago."

"Elliot probably overslept. He must be on his way, though. I called his place and there's no answer."

"Have you checked your voicemail?"

Olivia had to keep from smacking herself in the head. Her thoughts had been so consumed with annoyance at the previous night's date and at Elliot for not being there that morning, she hadn't checked her voicemail yet. She checked her office phone first- nothing.

When she listened to her new message on her cell phone, she went cold.

"Hey Liv, it's me. I just got a call from that last clerk. She overheard a customer talking about crashing a frat party tonight after we left. I'm sorry to ruin your date, but if you get this message call me. I'm going to go on up there to take a look around and talk to some people. I'll let you know what I found out tomorrow morning."

Cragen had been watching Olivia listen to the message, and he knew something was wrong.

"What is it? What did he say?"

Olivia ignored Cragen while she pushed a few buttons to speed dial Elliot's cell phone. Several rings, and finally his voicemail greeting. Olivia hung up without leaving a message.

"He went to follow up a lead last night without me," she said, finally answering Cragen's question.

"Get Fin and Munch back here. Right now."

----------------------

The first thing he noticed was the smell. It reminded him of an old house, except this moldy, mildewy smell was far more powerful, almost overwhelming. His eyes were open now, he knew, but he still couldn't see anything.

_Blindfolded._

Elliot tentatively tested his other senses. It was hard to move, and he eventually recognized restraints on his wrists and ankles. His neck was sore, too, probably from being unconscious in the awkward sitting upright position he had been in up to this point.

_What happened?_

He tried to remember. He had felt out of place and obvious at the party the night before; no one wanted to talk to him, and everyone clumsily tried to hide their liquor every time he came near. He remembered thinking that going up there had been a mistake. Now he was sure.

_Where am I?_

He had to get this thing off his eyes. Elliot tried using his shoulder to push the blind up, but it stayed firmly in place. His movement caught the attention of the other people in the room.

"It's awake."

A female voice. A hard, wooden voice, but definitely a woman.

Elliot waited for a follow up comment, and when there wasn't any, ventured to say something himself. He was alarmed to find that he seemed to have trouble exhaling air with enough force to form words.

"Listen, I'm a cop. If you let me go now, things will go much easier for you. I won't even press charges."

A hard slap across the face shocked and then stung Elliot. He clenched his jaw and pulled harder on the restraints.

"Punishment makes it angry, not scared like the others."

This time a man's voice. Slightly whiny, followed by a wheezing breath. He must be allergic to whatever is floating around in the air down here.

As Elliot became more in tune to his surroundings, he noticed intense heat on his head and shoulders. He was under a spotlight. In high time the realization intruded into his muddy thinking that these must be the people who were supposed to be mere rumor. Then he remembered the story the shopgirl had started to relate to the detectives, and he could hear his own heart beating.

"It's starting to panic." The female voice again.

Their attempts to verbally objectify him were absurd sounding and ham-handed. Elliot would have laughed under any other circumstances. Instead, he tried to reason again.

"I'm a police officer. They're going to notice I'm missing when I don't show up to work, and then they're going to tear this city apart until they find me. Your secret little club will be exposed."

"It doesn't know what time it is." The woman again.

"It doesn't know how much trouble it's in." The man added.

Elliot felt his chair tip backward, and the loss of balance and disorientation caused him to lean forward reflexively, but he was still secured to the seat. The heat evaporated as they dragged him out from under the spotlight. He sensed he was being taken into another room, where the air was not as bad. He felt relief at being removed from under the spotlight, and now the blindfold was coming off. Elliot had to squint and blink several times until his eyes became accustomed to the row of bright lights near the opposite wall. Once he saw what was now in front of him, Elliot immediately regretted the loss of the blindfold. He couldn't stop himself from shaking, but he held his voice level and calm.

"Look, if there's something you want, you'll get it a lot more quickly holding a cop hostage. These boys are just students; they don't have any influence. They can't do anything for you. You've gotten yourselves in too deep. Let them go, and I'll stay with you. I'll help you get out of this." Elliot's offer sounded half-baked to his own ears, but it was the best he could think of under the circumstances.

"It thinks it's in a position to negotiate."

Finally Elliot got a glimpse of one of his captors, the man. He looked surprisingly young, albeit stocky and a little too pudgy for someone who should be in the prime of their life; by the sporadic blemishes still breaking out on his forehead and chin, perhaps not long out of high school. The young man's face was not what Elliot focused on, though. It was the syringe in the man's hand that held all of Elliot's attention as he thumped it to shake loose any air bubbles and pushed the plunger a tad to make sure it was ready to inject. The woman swatted at Elliot's right arm to bring the blood to the surface, and the man approached. Elliot tried to pull away, but couldn't.

"Wait! You're making a mistake; you do this to a cop and you'll be in prison for the rest of your lives." Fears started attacking his brain from every direction. What were they putting in him? Was the needle clean, or did they pick it up off the ground in an alley somewhere? Why were they doing this? What were they going to do with him next?

"We prefer not to listen to it anymore."

The needle painfully punched through his tense muscle. Within a few minutes the already highly lit room suddenly brightened, and what he was looking at started shifting, sliding out of form, and morphing into strange and frightening things Elliot had never imagined.

----------------------

Munch, Fin and Cragen began to discuss how to proceed and where to start, but Olivia already knew exactly where to begin.

"There was one girl we talked to yesterday who said she knew what we were talking about. Elliot said she called him last night about a party where something might happen. You guys go do whatever you want; I'm going to find that clerk."

"No." Cragen said, adamant. "Nobody is doing any more investigation alone until we find Elliot. I want everyone in pairs at all times."

"That's really going to slow us down, if we can't separate to cover more ground." Munch said. "Why don't we call in reinforcements?"

"Because we're going to find him. Us. Nobody knows this territory better than we do. Bringing in a bunch of uniforms and getting them coordinated would just waste time. And once we get him back, I don't want him to have to deal with a bunch of publicity. Nobody would ever look at him the same way again." Olivia's determination did not completely persuade the others, but it prevented any argument. Cragen nodded.

"All right, Munch and Fin, you guys go talk to your contacts until Olivia calls with the location of the party from last night, then I need you to talk to the students who attended. I'll go with Olivia and be her back up. Are we all on the same page?"

"Let's go" was Olivia's answer, and they were all walking briskly for the door.

Within the hour, Olivia and Cragen walked into the last store she and Elliot had visited the day before. She scanned the store for any sign of the clerk but only found another girl, not unlike the one from yesterday, absently chewing gum behind the check out counter. Olivia hurriedly showed the girl her credentials and spoke rapidly.

"I was here yesterday afternoon and talked to the clerk who was working then. I need her name, address, and any other information you can give me."

The girl appeared startled and shuffled through some papers that clearly did not contain the information she needed while she regained her composition.

"Uh, I think that chick's name is Andrea. I don't know her last name. The owner would, though."

"Where can we find the owner?" Cragen interjected.

"Like I know. We only see her maybe once every few months." After studying the doubtful looks on the officers' faces, she explained further. "We fax our timesheets to this number once every two weeks, and then we get our checks a few days later. As long as nothing crazy happens and she's making money, we never see her."

"Then we need to call her right now, because something crazy has happened." Olivia said, as she handed the clerk a pen and paper.

-------------------

The clerk had given them the phone number and name of the owner, but there was no answer at the number, and Olivia had to leave a message to call her back immediately regarding a very serious police matter. Back at the office, the store owner's name also wasn't turning up in any of the searches of addresses within the state. Unable to contain her irritation, Olivia threw her pen down before she called Munch and Fin. As she suspected, they hadn't waited on her call but had taken it upon themselves to find where the previous night's party had been. So far they had only talked to one or two students who were there, and these students provided no useful information. The continuing questioning might yield something new, however, and they would call her when they found someone who might help them.

Olivia also knew from the clerk that the girl from the day before wouldn't be due back at work until the following day. Until then, Olivia would stay busy. When Cragen disappeared into his office to handle other demands, Olivia slipped away to join Munch and Fin in their questioning.

She did not have much difficulty finding the two detectives, so obvious in their surroundings at this college.

"We were just about to call you. I think we found somebody good." Munch met Olivia's approach halfway and pointed in the direction of Fin, talking to a young man shifting his weight from one foot to another and gesticulating as he talked.

"Tell her what you just told me." Fin said when Olivia arrived.

"Okay, there was this old guy hanging out at the party last night. We thought either we were about to be busted or he was some kind of perv, so we didn't talk to him or anything. After a while, he was gone."

Munch blanched at the phrase, "old guy" and stepped closer to the kid.

"Did you see him talking to anyone? Go anywhere with anyone?"

"No, dude. I don't even know how he found out about the party. We keep our invites to a minimum."

"We're going to need a list of those invites." Olivia said.

----------------------

As the night wore on, the detectives continued to scour the invitation list to no avail. Only one girl named Andrea could be found on the list, and she wasn't the clerk. Of the other students they managed to track down, some remembered Elliot, others didn't, and none of them knew anything about what might have happened to him.

Olivia's eyes popped open and found her head on her desk, propped up by a pile of papers, some of crumpled from her restless nap. She looked up and there were the others, similarly engaged in slumber. The clock read 5:00 a.m.; had she really been asleep for three hours? Three wasted hours. Her hands fumbled for and found her cell phone. She didn't have to look up the number for the store's owner anymore; it was imprinted on both her and the cell phone's memory. Olivia was actually a little surprised when someone answered this time.

A rushed introduction, then "did you get my messages?"

The groggy woman on the other end paused, then said, "No, what's this about? Did something happen at one of my stores?"

----------------------

Suddenly the detectives were all awakened by the clarion alarm of Olivia's voice.

"I've got it!" She waved the piece of paper with Andrea's address in the air. "Come on, let's go!"

"Olivia, how about a warrant? Think we might need that?" Cragen, always the voice of reason.

"These are exigent circumstances; someone's life may be in danger." Olivia countered.

"You really want to risk trying to make that fly with a judge if we get over to this girl's apartment and find…" Cragen let his voice trail off rather than contemplate Elliot's possible fates out loud.

Olivia hesitated, finally saying, "Fine, just please make the call now."

"Of course."

----------------------

Time ceased to exist. Had he been there for hours? Days? Weeks? No, not that long, but otherwise Elliot could not tell. His existence alternated between being under a spotlight and being in almost complete darkness. He had figured out a few things, though. Whatever it was that they were shooting him up with made him weak; at times, even when not restrained, he found he couldn't move or only had the strength to barely shift a limb slightly. Also, whatever these chemicals were, they were making bright or even normal light unbearable, while his night vision became heightened. Just a sliver a light allowed him to make out shapes and depths in the room when it should have been completely dark. He also thought that the injections would contain some sort of sedative, but instead they kept him awake and hyperaware of his surroundings. Every creak became a scream, every touch felt like being stabbed, and every twitch of motion in his sight line jumped out at him. In the fleeting moments when he did sleep, his dreams were vivid, brief and horrible. He suspected that there were hallucinogenic properties to that stuff as well, and he was wondering how long he could hold on to his sanity under these circumstances when the female voice forced him from his reverie.

"Road trip" was the last thing he heard as the solid wall to his cell flung open and he was harshly pulled from the box and onto the floor.

----------------------

Olivia ridiculously thought of her dentist's sourness the next time she would go in for a check up. She was sometimes prone to grinding her teeth, and this had turned into a popular activity for her over the past 24 hours. It was midmorning before she and the other detectives arrived, warrant in hand, at Andrea's dingy apartment. Olivia banged on the door with the flat of her hand until Andrea answered. She opened the door, appearing as though the knocking had woken her.

"Oh, it's you" she said, recognizing Olivia. "What? What's so… hey!"

Andrea protested as the detectives pushed past her and into the apartment, checking every room and in the obvious hiding places.

"Where is he?" Olivia grabbed Andrea around her shoulders and shook her slightly.

"Who? What's going on?" Andrea seemed genuinely distraught and confused.

"My partner, remember him? He went to that party you called him about and now he's missing. Who told you to make that call?"

Andrea shook her head.

"I didn't call him. I didn't! In fact… I threw away the card he gave me right after you left."

"Where?"

"There in the store, in the trashcan just behind the register."

"Did you see anyone take the card out of the trash?"

"No, but I had to stock some inventory, so I was busy at one of the racks for a while."

A thought was forming in Olivia's mind; she had to stop and walk away for a minute to complete it.

"Someone else… there was someone else in the store when we were there. A customer, browsing in the back. Who was that?"

"I don't know! I told you, I don't know these people." Andrea started to tear up as the gravity of the situation sunk in. "I'm really sorry, okay? Your partner seemed like a nice guy. I feel really bad, okay?"

"Did the customer buy anything while after we left? Maybe buy something with, please God, a credit card? Think!"

Andrea wrung her hands and stared at the floor.

"No."

Olivia slumped, and the other detectives followed her lead. What now?

"But, I know she's been in there before. She's bought lots of stuff, and she's used credit cards, I'm sure of it. I think she was in there a week or two ago."

"If you saw her name on the credit card receipt, do you think you'd recognize it?"

"Maybe. I'll try."

-------------------------

What Olivia and the others expected to be a quick review of a few credit card receipts turned into an all-day project. The owner had given the go-ahead for the store to be closed while Andrea removed the stacks of receipts from the safe in the back and started the process of reviewing each one carefully and for a longer time than Olivia preferred. At first, Andrea thought she remembered the day the woman came in, and only looked at those receipts. When none of them seemed right, she started over from the beginning. The number of receipts was staggering, too. Far more than any of them had anticipated.

"I'm in the wrong business. This place is making money hand over fist. So to speak." Munch's comments were not productive or welcome, and Olivia's glance let him know it.

Andrea had managed to pick out a few receipts that she thought might have come from the customer in question, but she was not sure so these were separated into a "maybe" pile while Andrea continued her search.

Olivia checked the time. It was now late afternoon, and almost 48 hours since the last time anyone had seen Elliot. She had a sensation of being throttled. Also, in all honesty, she had to admit to herself that she was starting to smell a bit. Munch, Cragen and Fin had all taken at least a few hours to go home, shower and change clothes. She had not. So she was contemplating the option of going home for a couple of hours to freshen up a bit when Andrea stood up, clutching a receipt triumphantly.

"Is that her? Are you sure?" Olivia snapped the receipt out of her hand and studied it, with Munch and Fin looking over her shoulder. Now they could call the credit card company and get this woman's address.

"Okay, Andrea, now I need you to talk to a sketch artist and give the best description you can of this woman. Can you do that for me?"

Andrea nodded solemnly.

"I'll do anything I can to get your guy back for you."

Olivia patted the girl's shoulder in appreciation. "Hold on, Elliot." Olivia murmured to herself.

----------------------

The swaying of the van let Elliot know that they were on the move, and gave him some hope that a vigilant trooper or police officer would pull over this conspicuous vehicle with its windows blacked out. The movement and resulting disconnected feeling made him a bit nauseous, but he could control that. Trussed up in the floor of the van face down, Elliot had little range of vision, but there was a young man lying next to him, similarly incapacitated. When Elliot realized the boy was awake and apparently cognizant, Elliot put all his strength into trying to communicate with him.

"Hey. What's your name?" Elliot asked. It took some time for the boy to answer.

"Justin." The name wasn't familiar to Elliot, but he hadn't spent a lot of time getting to know the names of the missing students, either.

"You got to hang in there, Justin. We're going to get out of this. First chance I get, I'm going to get all of us out of this."

Justin stared back dully.

"You'll never get that chance." The flat, matter-of-fact tone in Justin's voice made Elliot's nausea suddenly come on stronger. "First chance _I_ get, I'm killing myself. There's an easy way to do it. They talk about it in front of us. If we want out, we can just lean against the place where they pipe air into our boxes, so even after we pass out, we won't start breathing again, and the lack of oxygen will give us a way out."

"No- don't you do it. I mean it, Justin. Hold on just a little while longer. I'm a cop. I'm trained to take control of dangerous situations, and I can do it. They're going to slip up sooner or later, and when they do, I'll be ready."

Justin crumbled. "You're a cop? And you still got taken? What chance do I have, then?"

"It could have happened to anybody. This situation- it's not your fault, and it's not mine." Deep down, Elliot felt he was lying, and that this situation was almost entirely his fault, but he wasn't going to tell this kid that.

Justin's face reddened with the strain of holding back tears and he shook his head as much as he could manage, considering the side of it was flat on the floor of the van.

"You don't know. You haven't been here as long as I have. What they've done to me. What they'll do to you. I don't want to be rescued anymore. I just want this to end."

Elliot started to answer, determined to say something that would give this boy hope, when something cracked him on the back of the head.

"Shut your faces!" The man's voice seemed to come from far away, and then the world fell away into nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

--

Elliot awoke with a start, amazed he hadn't woken up before now. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. People- they surrounded him. And not people in captivity, either. These were throngs of young, free people bouncing and waving their arms in time to earsplitting music with a thumping beat and screaming lyrics. Most of the time the room- a huge room, a warehouse perhaps- was encased entirely in darkness except for restless, multicolored streaks of light. The sensitizing effect of the drugs, combined with his headache, the crushing volume of the music and sporadic but blinding flashes of light that cut across the crowd from time to time like lightning prompted Elliot to wonder if hell could be much worse than this.

But this was also a chance, and he wouldn't squander it. Elliot took a moment to study his new environment and look around. On the upside, it was nice to be clothed again, for a change. He was comfortable with his body and hadn't been shamed by having his clothes taken away from him as the other men probably had been. Nevertheless, being clothed did help him feel less vulnerable, so that was a plus. Not all these people could be a part of his kidnappers' group. In fact, Elliot was beginning to suspect that this "cult" was really just the two asinine losers he'd seen so far. Now the drawbacks of his predicament started setting in.

They had him in a straight jacket and pajamas, so he looked like a mental patient. His facial expression, which he knew had to be slack from the drugs, wouldn't help him convince someone to come over and talk to him, either. He tried to get his legs under him, but immediately felt a tether at the back of the jacket hold him in place, sitting firmly on the ground, his back against a wall. Hidden in plain sight, if anyone did notice him, he seriously doubted they would be interested in getting to know him.

Elliot searched the crowd; no one was even looking in his direction. He spotted some of the kidnapped boys; not all of them had been carried along on the journey, but one was suspended above the crowd in what was ostensibly a dancing cage. Another he could barely see several yards away, in a position more or less identical to his.

Elliot gathered as much air in his lungs as he could, and tried yelling at a nearby crowd of dancers bobbing with the music, oblivious to Elliot's presence. His voice was so weak, even to his own ears and especially in competition with the party's soundtrack, that the shrieking singer swallowed Elliot's voice whole and he continued to go unnoticed.

The effort of trying to be heard tired him, and Elliot had to fight the impulse to close his eyes against the sensory assault. He had to keep searching for his moment.

And there, as though his prayers had been heard by a higher power and instantly answered, he saw someone looking, no, _staring_ at him. It seemed too good to be true- it was Olivia, watching him. It seemed impossible, but the woman he was looking at was Olivia, he was sure of it. She started cutting her way through the crowd sideways, back and forth, like a shark. Why was she taking her time?

"Olivia!" He had to call out to her, as she appeared unsure about who he was. Gradually, she continued to move closer, never taking her eyes off him. Her face looked weird- overly made up and gaudy. And then he knew, of course, that it was indeed too good to be true. This was not Olivia, but some girl, probably still a teenager, with similar short, dark hair but definitely not his partner.

Yet she continued to move closer to him and before he had decided how to approach the delicate subject he needed to discuss with her in this hellhole, she was literally on him. Elliot leaned back as she attempted to grind her rough-hewn short skirt into his face. The fingers she caressed his face felt like biting spiders and he had to shake his head furiously to get her to back off. The girl, knowing when she wasn't wanted, shrugged at him as if to say, "your loss" and started to leave. He was blowing his chance.

"Don't go!" His whisper-volume plea happened to coincide with a rare and brief drop in the volume of the music, and she turned back to start towards him again, smiling with renewed confidence.

"I need to tell you something!" The crushing noise was back, but by this time she read his lips sufficiently well enough to lean in, her ear pressing next to his mouth.

What was said next nobody but the girl could have possibly heard, but anyone watching would have seen her playfully lascivious smirk turn downward and known that whatever the words were, they made her uncertain and frightened. She pulled back and froze, not knowing what to do next.

Elliot lifted his folded arms as much as he could and pointed at them with his face.

"Get me out!"

The girl reached out hesitantly and fumbled with the top buckle until she had the idea of using her glowsticks to illuminate her work. She had just pulled the first strap loose when a claw-like hand gripped her shoulder and jerked her upright. It was the woman responsible for Elliot's disappearance, made up in elaborate face paint, now just inches away from Elliot's champion.

Elliot kicked at the woman as she gracefully stepped out of his reach, pulling the girl with her. Now it was his captor's mouth that held court with the girl. A moment later the girl was nodding- apologetic and embarrassed. She waved goodbye to Elliot with her lower lip thrust out in a comical pout, and then she was gone.

The woman now turned her glowering attention to Elliot, slowly wagging her finger at him like a metronome. He had misbehaved. She walked back to him with a swagger, and sharply kicked his right shin with the reinforced toe of her stiletto boot before swiftly swooping down into his ear.

"Next time those legs kick at me, you're going to lose them."

Just as swiftly, she reattached the strap that the girl had undone. The woman continued to hover directly over Elliot, gloating.

"Well? You got something to say to me?"

With flared breathing, Elliot nodded, reared back and spit squarely in her face. As she straightened herself from her crouching position, her expression never wavered, and the visage of her spit-spattered, smug superiority struck a chord of terror in him he didn't know existed. She reached behind her and then stabbed him in the shoulder with such violence, he was afraid the needle would break off under the skin. His near-silent scream accompanied a crescendo in the soundtrack of this abyss, and even Elliot did not hear his own voice.

--

If the detectives had learned one thing, it was that the night shift at the credit card company was not exactly the most helpful crowd.

"We're just here for emergencies."

"This is an emergency" Olivia argued.

"No, for example, if you drop your card down a sewer grate at two in the morning and can't pay for a cab to get home. That sort of emergency I can help you with. I can't give you someone's personal information; you'll have to wait until our manager gets here in the morning."

"It is the morning." Olivia said, using the phone receiver to support the weight of her head.

"I mean after the sun comes up."

Olivia hung up and pondered what to do until then.

"We could go back and recanvass the college. The frat party college. You know the one."

"You, my dear, are a textbook example of diminishing returns." Munch said, not bothering to move his chin from his chest.

"Huh?"

"Go home." Cragen translated. "Get some sleep. If you don't get some sleep soon, you won't be any good to anyone, least of all Elliot. That goes for everybody. There's nothing more anyone can do for at least another few hours. Don't make me pull rank."

"Another few hours. Every hour he's gone, Captain, they're doing something horrible to him. I know it."

"Olivia, that's exactly the kind of sloppy thinking we can't allow ourselves right now. I want you in your bed within the hour, and don't drive. Take a cab. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

--

Olivia started toward her shower but her feet took her past the bathroom and directly to the bed. She barely set the alarm before she was deeply asleep. Even unconscious, she could feel the weight of fear, guilt and uncertainty she carried, until somehow magically, she was back in time.

Back at the dreaded date, enduring her companion's boorish, long-winded opinions on subjects she couldn't have cared less about. Then she heard an unlikely sound. Over the din of clinking utensils, clattering plates and conversation from all sides, and despite her cell phone being wedged at the bottom of her purse, she heard its unmistakable ring. It took her a while to dig it out, but she answered before the voicemail picked up, and there was Elliot's voice.

"Elliot! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

For her life, Olivia couldn't remember why she would think he might not be just fine.

"I don't know. Never mind. What's up?"

"I got a call from that clerk. She overheard some customers talking about a frat party going on tonight. But I hate to interrupt your date, so if you want to skip it…"

"It sounds serious. I'll meet you at the station in half an hour. Don't leave without me." Olivia stood up to gather her effects, apologizing profusely to her date and offering to pay for her half. Of course, he accepted her offer; she wouldn't have expected this guy would do anything else.

Feeling an elation at going to meet Elliot that she couldn't explain, Olivia jumped in her car. She was driving directly towards work, but now the streets seemed to converge in the wrong places, shifting their positions in relation to one another. She checked the time, and it had been hours since Elliot's call. Had she been lost all this time? Olivia called Elliot's desk, but there was no answer. She contemplated calling his cell phone when her own cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Olivia." It was Elliot, but he sounded drained, lifeless.

"Elliot, what's wrong? Are you still waiting for me? I don't know what's wrong with me, I can't find my way. Where are you?"

"Oliviaaaahhhh." This time, Elliot carried the last vowel sound of her name until it gradually turned into a horrible, choking, gurgling sound.

Petrified, Olivia dropped her scalding phone. When she picked it back up, the line was dead. She jumped when the phone rang again. The caller ID said it was Elliot, but this time she didn't want to answer.

She awoke, thrashing in her own bedsheets, to the sound of her cell phone insisting on her attention.

"Elliot?"

"Sorry, no." Fin's voice, dry and unamused as always. Comforting. "Just got word over the wire. There was a rave last night upstate, and another kid missing. The locals found a girl who thinks she may have seen Elliot. We'll be there in about two minutes to pick you up."

--

Munch and Fin filled in as much detail as they knew after Olivia got in the backseat, still straightening her socks. A couple had gone to an unlicensed rave, and when the female half of the pair couldn't find her ride home afterwards, she became concerned and called the local police. The police, in turn, had arrived just in time to stop the few remaining stragglers from leaving, and questioning had followed. One of the officers became particularly intrigued by a girl's story that one of the attendees had claimed to be a cop, despite his bizarre attire.

"Anybody out there missing one of their own?" was the way the half-joking inquiry came across Fin's desk early that morning.

The drive took several hours, and by the time they trio arrived, everyone in the warehouse was obviously weary of each other's company. Munch and Fin split up to chat with other officers and partygoers standing about, while Olivia made a straight line for a pixyish girl with short, dark hair and raccoon eyes.

The girl sat uncomfortably near the opposite wall, legs akimbo. Olivia did her introduction and asked the officer standing over the girl to please give them a minute.

"You said you talked to someone last night who claimed to be a cop? What did he look like?"

"It was dark, but he was an older guy. Looked like he didn't really belong here. Brown hair. He was wearing some kind of straight jacket thing. Looked like he was kind of out of it."

Olivia reeled.

"You saw someone helpless like that and you didn't even think anything was wrong?"

The girl pulled out a folded flyer advertising the rave. The event was promoted as "crazy" and "insane" and there was a cartoon of a man in a straight jacket, his tongue lolling to one side, his eyes bulging and toes splayed as though he were being shocked..

"There were a few guys here last night dressed up like that. I thought it was part of the theme."

"And you talked to him? What did he say?"

She reiterated his words in a rote, disinterested monotone.

"He said, um, 'I'm a cop. I've been kidnapped. Please help me."

Olivia's eyes rolled into the back of her head as her lids closed tightly. He had been here, right here.

"So did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Help him?" Olivia was losing patience.

"I started to, I did, okay? But then this woman came over and pulled me off him. She said he was decoration, and that he was hers. And that I shouldn't mess with other people's property."

The rage building in Olivia almost got the better of her, but she pushed it back down.

"Who organized this party? Who gave you this flyer?"

"I don't know who put it together; there was just some guy on campus handing out flyers to everybody. I didn't know him, though. It was just some guy. He looked like another student."

"I'll need you to talk to a sketch artist and put together drawings of the guy handing out the flyers and of the woman who talked to you last night."

"Well, okay, but she had on make-up. I mean, that Day-Glo stuff, all over her face. I don't think I'd recognize her if I saw her again."

"When was the last time you saw the guy you talked to, or any of the guys dressed like him?"

"I don't know. Maybe around three or four this morning. I wasn't really watching the time, I was just…"

"Just flying on E and aiding and abetting kidnapping and torture. I ought to have you arrested right here."

The girl flinched, stricken.

"Uh, don't worry. You're not under arrest." Munch handed the girl his card as he led Olivia away. "Call us if you think of anything else."

--

Back in the car, the detectives traded notes from their respective conversations. Munch had talked to the girl whose date failed to give her a ride back home, and in fact, he had failed to show up again at all after he left her to get something to drink. No one else knew much; the men in the straight jackets had been largely ignored or regarded as atmosphere, and if there were any suspicious vehicles or other activity in the area, no one had noticed.

"You know we can't continue to keep this in-house anymore. The fact that these lunatics are carrying their victims to parties for their own entertainment is important information. We're going to have to put this out there for the other investigators in the state. It may help them get a break." Munch felt the need to explain the decision he and Fin had already made, even as Fin dialed his cell phone to have this information disseminated across the state.

"Yeah, I know." Olivia said, defeated.

Hours later the detectives were back in the city, and Olivia watched as the day began turning dark again. Going on 72 hours missing now.

"Well, we didn't want to say anything on the way up there, but I think it's unanimous. You have got to take a shower." Munch dropped this news on her with heartfelt sincerity.

"This is not the time for jokes, Munch."

"I'm not joking. You got some sleep, now you've got to take a few minutes to freshen up so the rest of us can stand to be within a six- foot radius of you."

Olivia leaned forward from the backseat.

"Fin, do you have something to add about this?"

"No comment."

"I started to last night, but I was so tired. I just couldn't make it." Olivia said.

Munch nodded.

"Obviously. Look, we'll wait out here in the car for you. Just please, I'm begging you, run into your apartment and reacquaint yourself with soap. Just for a minute."

"I know what you're trying to do. Get my mind off Elliot for a little while. I appreciate it, but I'm okay. I lost it a little bit at the warehouse, but I'm all right. Thanks for trying, though."

"Sure thing." Munch waited a beat, then, "So, you're still going to take that shower when we get back into town, right?"

Cragen called then, fresh from an unpleasant talk with the credit card company.

"They're getting the information for us now; it should be coming over the fax any minute."

The detectives waited anxiously for Cragen to come back on the line. The next time he spoke, his delivery sounded like a eulogy.

"The credit card belongs to a woman named Juliet Francis. She's an 87 year-old grandmother from Topeka."

"Stolen." Olivia gritted her teeth so hard, she thought she heard one of them chip.

--

Elliot and the other captives were left in the stale air of the van until night. He spent this time the same way he had since being punched in the shoulder with the supershot: ashen, unable to move and struggling to expand and contract his lungs. He would not die like this, not here, and not from these people. But every breath was a conscious effort, and sapped what little energy he'd kept in reserve. A thin sting of saliva connected his chin and the floor when he was carried out of the van under cover of darkness and tossed recklessly onto the floor of the of the first room, the one that he'd originally woken up in.

A kick to his abdomen sent him alternately skidding backwards, towards the far side of the room. Elliot coughed and wondered whether one of his lungs might have collapsed.

"Not dead yet?" The kick had come from the dumpy young man, but the voice belonged to the woman. "Let's see what we can do about that, after we have a little fun."

--

Fin offered to go find some of his old informants to see if any of them knew who was moving stolen credit cards out of the Midwest and, if so, whether any of them knew the mystery woman who apparently frequented the kinds of stores Olivia and Elliot had visited that day he went missing.

In the meantime, Olivia studied the composite drawings Andrea and the girl from the rave had helped create. One of the pictures was of an unremarkable young man, while the other two sketches reflected what had to be two different women, and Olivia wondered just how many people were involved with this well-hidden conspiracy.

--

Olivia and Munch spent the next day talking to more students, some of whom had been in attendance at the party where Elliot disappeared, some had been found by investigators in other parts of the state. The detectives in other areas had been happy to receive the new lead that the boys were not only disappearing from parties, but also were being taken to parties once incapacitated. Some of the missing students had been taken to other parties during the past several weeks, and they eagerly followed up on these relatively fresh leads. None of the incoming news was of much immediate interest to Olivia and Munch, however. Everyone they talked to who saw the students could only say that they appeared to be "wasted" so no one had mingled with them or questioned who they were. Olivia dutifully made notes of the conversations and the details of what had been discovered, but none of it promised to help find Elliot, so she mentally filed the information as irrelevant.

In the course of talking to a particular student for the second time, Olivia's phone rang; she recognized the number as originating from upstate.

"Hi, Ms. Benson? This is Officer Adamson, remember me?"

Olivia did remember. He was one of the officers from upstate assigned to investigate the rave where Elliot had been seen.

"Just thought you'd like to know, we found that boy reported missing from the rave."

Olivia's brain woke up.

"Where? Did you find the others, too?"

"No, turns out it was a false report. The guy had a falling out with his girlfriend and left her at the party without a ride home. So she calls us and reports him missing, while he goes to an old friend's house a couple of hundred miles away to sulk. He didn't even know we were looking for him."

Olivia had to bite her tongue. Didn't this officer realize how cruel he was being to raise her hopes like that?

The caller continued, "I know we should charge the girl for filing a false report, but if she hadn't, we might have never known about your guy and the other abductees being here, so I'll probably just give her a stern talking-to."

"Yeah, okay. That's fine. Thanks." Olivia hung up and saw Munch watching her anxiously. She shook her head, no.

Almost immediately her phone rang again; this time with a completely unfamiliar, yet geographically closer, number. When she answered the call, the voice on the other end hissed something indistinctly.

"What? Speak up, I can't hear you."

"This is Andrea, you know, from the store. I'm at a place called Strapped- do you know where that is?"

Olivia smirked in spite of herself.

"Yeah, I know. I thought you said you didn't hang out with those crowds in places like that."

"I don't, okay? This is a sister store to the one I work at; I'm filling in for someone else. Listen, okay? She's here."

Olivia almost didn't want to believe she'd heard what Andrea said.

"The customer who pulled Elliot's card out of the trash that day?"

"Yes, okay? She's like, looking around, but she could leave any moment."

Olivia snapped her fingers at Munch.

"We'll be there just as soon as we can. Do not, under any circumstances, let her leave. She's used bad credit cards at your store, so you can hold her there until we arrive. Whatever you do, just don't let her go, understand?"

--

Olivia watched the woman named Janine Burke through the mirror on the other side of the interrogation room. They had arrived at the store to find Andrea accusing Janine of shoplifting, and Janine arguing rabidly that she was being falsely accused. The tactic seemed unnecessary to Olivia's way of thinking, but it did the job and had kept Janine there until the detectives could arrest her.

They had her for the credit card fraud; Andrea and her boss helpfully filed the complaints against Janine. Now Olivia would have to use that leverage to find Elliot. She eagerly wanted to talk to this woman, but knowing that this might be her first and last chance to find her partner, she performed a little prep work, starting by calling Casey. After giving Casey a brief introduction to the present situation, Olivia got the point.

"I know you haven't been kept in the loop, and that's my fault. But right now, Elliot is out there somewhere, and if they haven't killed him already, they will. Some of those boys who were taken have been gone for months, and they may still be alive. But they won't keep Elliot around that long; he's too dangerous, so I don't have months to look for him. If I can't convince this woman to talk, give up her accomplices, and tell me the location of these guys, he's dead."

"I can appreciate that. What do you want me to do?"

"I may have to offer this woman full immunity against any charges that could be brought against her in relation to these disappearances."

Casey responded more or less the way Olivia predicted.

"I'm sorry, but I can't get on board with that. Olivia, you don't anything about this person yet. She could be incidentally involved, or she may be the ringleader. And I am not about to give immunity to whoever has been calling the shots here. Isn't there any way to confirm her role in these abductions?"

"That's what I'm trying to explain here, Casey. She is the one, the only one that any investigator in the state has been able to catch. I'm not going to immediately throw a sweetheart deal on the table, but if she's smart, it'll eventually come to that. I need to know that you're prepared to make that deal." Olivia waited for an answer but Casey was stuck on something else Olivia had said.

"Oh, that's right. These guys have been taken from all over the state, right?"

"Yeah. Also, they've been drugged and taken to parties for their kidnappers' entertainment. Casey, I know that maybe I should be seeing a bigger picture here, but all I can think about is getting Elliot back alive. Will you help me or not?"

"Let me think about it. I need to make some phone calls."


	3. Chapter 3

--

Olivia didn't have to feign her anger when she entered the interrogation room to confront Janine. She recounted the kinds of charges Janine faced for using the stolen credit card, surely not the only one, either. Janine's tender reaction satisfied Olivia.

"I was just using a card somebody gave me. They said it was theirs, and that I could use it. I was buying the stuff for someone else."

"No, you knew what you were doing. But honestly, I really don't care about the credit card. I know you're connected with those missing college boys, and unless you tell me right now where and how to find them, a little credit card fraud is going to be the least of your problems."

Janine shrunk away from Olivia.

"I don't know what…"

"Save it. You were in that store when my partner and I were talking to the clerk, and you took his card and tricked him into going out that night, and now he's missing. The clerk has already identified you, and it's just a matter of time before we connect the phone call from you to my partner that night. Do you have any idea what the punishment is for kidnapping a cop?"

Olivia steeled herself for more denials, but Janine broke down more easily than Olivia expected.

"It wasn't me! I told them what I heard in the store, and they made me call him. They made me! Please, I know I'm in a lot of trouble, but I can't tell you anything else."

"Lady, this is what it comes down to: unless you like prison, you better tell us what you know about these missing men right now."

Janine glanced nervously at the mirror in front of her and then to Olivia.

"I don't know much. I've been running in these circles for a while, so I'd heard about them, but I didn't think this group actually existed until they contacted me recently. And even now, I'm just a procurer. I get stuff they want for them. I'm low level, okay? I just… I can't go to prison. But if I talk, they'll make me pay for it." Janine's face flushed and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Almost too easy.

"If you don't talk, you're going to jail for the stolen credit cards and conspiracy for my partner's disappearance, and you'll never see the light of day again."

"I don't want to be locked up."

Olivia resented being taken around in these conversational circles, and decided to end it.

"Then tell me what you know, or I walk out of this room and you're good as buried behind bars. Where are they?!"

Olivia's raised voice seemed to trigger something in Janine. She pulled herself together and glared back at Olivia with sudden, surprising defiance and a hard voice that didn't sound like the frightened young woman from a moment ago.

"I want full immunity for everything. I want it in writing, and I want it signed by the DA."

Olivia stalked the room, trying to get a handle on this girl. Doubts and inner-voice warnings echoed Casey's fears about making any such deals with this person, and these concerns pulled on her brain, but all those voices were drowned out by the screeching in her head that said she just needed to find Elliot. Now.

Within a couple of hours, Casey handed the signed immunity agreement to Olivia.

"I hope you know what you're doing," was all Olivia had time to listen to before she grabbed Munch, Fin and Cragen and stuck her head back in the interrogation room on the way out. Janine had written out directions and instructions for finding Elliot and the others while waiting for the immunity agreement to be delivered.

"Anything else you can think of we need to know before we go?" Olivia asked.

"Um, no. Oh, wait. There is one other thing; he is I."

"What the hell does that mean?" Fin asked over Olivia's shoulder.

Olivia grabbed his arm and dragged him onwards.

"I don't know- who cares- let's go."

--

There. Olivia pointed to a barely visible trip wire that Janine had warned her about. One by one, with guns drawn they slowly, silently stepped over the wire and continued down the dank corridor. The smell and filth oppressed them more the further they continued. Was this where Elliot had been all this time? Finally they reached the door, outside of which was a keypad. Out of place in this environment. Silently swearing to kill Janine if her code was wrong, Olivia tapped in the number. The mechanism rewarded her with a green light and, signaling to the others, she turned the door handle and cautiously stepped inside. This was not the holding room, she knew. Janine had been correct about this fact, too. The team entered the unremarkable room, making their way to the next door on the other side. This was the one. With everyone gathered close, Olivia quietly counted down, then abruptly shoved her way in with the yell, "Police!"

Their concerns with securing the room were almost instantly allayed. Standing over to the side, obviously surprised by his visitors, was a young man dressed in clothes as plain as himself. He held no weapon, nor was there any implement within lunging grasp of him that would have been any threat to the intruders. So it was not this man that made the team collectively gasp and squint against what they were seeing. It was the sight of nine men lined up against the opposite wall, each encased in his own box made out of soundproof glass on all sides except the underside. The boxes were suspended about a foot off the floor, and each one was not much larger than an oversized terrarium. Spotlights, one for each box, bore down directly over the men, all of them forced to crunch themselves into fetal positions. The shorter ones could straighten their necks somewhat; the taller ones could not.

Through the blood rushing into her ears, Olivia heard Fin mutter an obscenity then, within a few strides, grab the frumpy man standing, stunned, to the side of the room and roughly force his hands behind his back to be handcuffed while being told his rights. Olivia numbly continued her forward motion, and with increasing urgency began studying the men one by one. They looked odd, and it took a moment for her to realize that they were all hairless from the neck down. They all looked so similar to each other, and many of them had their faces turned away, towards the wall. The fourth one from the left was sobbing into his arms. They were all clenched in the uncomfortable positions except for the one just to the left of the crier; he slumped loosely against the wall.

"Which one is he?"

Cragen was talking to Olivia, but it took her a moment to respond.

"I don't know. Let me look."

She walked down the row, quickly studying one man, then the next, as she became aware of Munch and Fin pulling out the bolt cutters Janine told them they would need. They began working on cutting open the padlocks on the first box just as Olivia reached the ninth box. That's when she saw the alphabetical letters posted above the boxes; this one read, "I". She peered in more closely. His head was turned away and the angry blue and orange bruises on his side and back were new, but the tattoos on his arms were unmistakable.

"It's him!" She gestured to Fin, and with boltcutter in hand, he strode to where Olivia was standing.

Inside the box, the shouts and rustle of activity were inaudible. In the sideways reflection on the glass walls, Elliot could discern movement, but whether the motion was one of his keepers, or one of the hallucinations that continued to haunt him, the images were inconsequential to him. Turning to look might only invite unwanted attention. It was not until someone's palms smacked against the wall with silent but insistent thuds that, with great effort, he turned to look. What he saw was another trick of the mind, it had to be. So he faced the wall again, resting his head against his arms, which were draped over his knees, one of the only positions he and others could maintain in these boxes.

Olivia blinked. Elliot had looked right at her. Why wasn't he responding to her? She kept pounding at the thick glass wall until she heard the snap of the bolt cutter slicing through the padlock. She quickly forced the remains of the padlock onto the floor with a thunk, and splintered her fingernails clawing at the small gap between the top and side of the box that had appeared when the padlock fell away. Impulsively, she grabbed his arm. He instantly tensed and recoiled, and Olivia sunk. For the first time since this ordeal began, tears threatened.

"My God. What have they done to you?"

The voice was strange and familiar at one time. He craned around once again to look at this figure standing in front of him.

His eyes, usually a bright blue appeared inky and alien, dilated to the point of erasing the iris. He was afraid to say her name; what if he was just imagining again? Though it was hard to focus, he saw her chin crumple slightly, and he ventured to hope.

"Olivia?"

Gently, she helped him unfold himself from the confinement. Next to her, Cragen, Fin and Munch were doing the same for the other prisoners as they were given blankets to pull around themselves. Their backs, legs and arms were stiff and sore from the extended stay in the boxes, but one by one, they began stepping out and unsteadily supporting their own weight. Upon seeing Elliot, Munch pulled off his overcoat, offering it to him. It took both Munch and Olivia to pull Elliot's arms through the sleeves, then they watched him expectantly. Elliot looked down at his hands.

"I… they shot me up with something. My… I can't move my hands."

For the second time in as many minutes, Olivia had to force down her emotions so that Elliot wouldn't see the water trying to push into her eyes. She had to continue to be strong; she couldn't break down now. She would cry, but later.

"That's okay. Here, I got it."

She pulled the coat belt taut, and Olivia supported much of Elliot's weight as he slowly limped out of the dungeon, past the backup officers and paramedics rushing in, and past the male captor, now himself confined in cuffs.

--

Olivia's foot bounced with nervous energy as she sat outside the private room, watching Elliot's mouth move and then stop when it became Dr. Huang's turn to talk. She itched to know what was being said, but they spoke in hushed volume. Every once in a while, she could read lips and make out the words, "fine" and "better" coming from Elliot. Her frustration grew even more when a passing nurse noticed the partially open door and closed it the rest of the way. The hospital doctor had already examined Elliot, but Dr. Huang insisted that he talk to him before anyone else. Olivia had been pacing for a while when Dr. Huang opened the door and almost couldn't get all the way out of room for her pressing in.

"Well? How is he?"

"He's calm. He's resting. It's going to take time, Olivia."

Dr. Huang tried to move past her and make his way down the hall, but Olivia stopped him before he could take three steps.

"I need to talk to the others. They're in a lot worse shape than Elliot is." He said.

"I need to know." Finally Olivia felt the tears come. "Was he?" She couldn't bring herself to ask the question she had so professionally asked so many victims over the years, but Dr. Huang understood.

"He says no. Whether or not he's lying or in denial, it's hard for me to say. Usually, I can pick up on telltale signs, but Elliot knows as much as I do about how people react to being raped, so he may be covering. I will say this, I don't think that he is. The first six boys, definitely raped. No question. The others who were taken after them appear not. The kidnappers escalated the violence against their victims within the bounds of a certain chronology to heighten the horror of anticipation. So I think Elliot is telling the truth."

Upon seeing Olivia's obvious relief, Dr. Huang added, "But that doesn't mean he got out of this ordeal unscathed. I'm recommending a month of desk duty, and during that time I'll continue talking to him. After a month, I may lift my recommendation. We'll see."

"Can I go talk to him?"

"Yes, just keep it brief, and don't press him about details right now. Get what you need to move the investigation along and leave the rest of it alone for now. Don't get him upset. This is the first real rest he's had in a week."

_I know the feeling_, Olivia thought; she then immediately felt ashamed of herself. Whatever hell she'd been through over the past week was nothing compared to what Elliot had been through. A doctor Olivia had seen from down the hall intercepted Dr. Huang and started talking to him. Olivia took this opportunity to gracefully depart into Elliot's room.

Jamming the palms of her hands in her eyes to clear away any residue of crying, Olivia put on her smiley face and entered Elliot's private room.

He smiled back at her in a vacant, serene greeting. Happy to see her, filled to the brim with painkillers, and clearly sedated.

"My hero."

Olivia scuffed her step guiltily.

"Hardly."

She came around the far side of his bed and sat in one of the hard plastic chairs set out for visitors. Unsure of what to say, Olivia gestured Elliot's formerly hirsute chest, partly visible from under his covers and pajamas.

"So. What's that about?" she asked playfully.

Elliot reached up and ran his hand through the opening of loose-fitting shirt.

"Oh yeah, that. Well, it'll grow back. Could've been worse. I don't need to be losing any more of this." Elliot rubbed the top of his head, still covered in his short-cropped hair. "It did give me a new appreciation for what women go through. That wax was hot. It took a really long time, and it was… very painful." Elliot dropped his voice with the last few words, sensing a palpable downturn in what had been the light mood in the room.

Impulsively, Olivia took his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back.

"I am so, so sorry I didn't find you sooner."

"You found me just in time. Nobody else could find those kids for months. You found us in a week."

"I got lucky."

"False modesty isn't attractive."

"No, I'm serious. I was so afraid we'd never find you, and it was my fault. I…"

Elliot tried to wave her self blame away, but Olivia continued.

"I should've had my phone on me that night where I could hear it. I should've checked it for messages before the next day. I was so selfish."

Elliot paused as though trying to recall something that happened years ago, and then said, "Hey, you went on a date, right? How'd that go?"

Olivia had to laugh at the mundane question, which was precisely the question he would have asked the week before.

"It was horrible."

"Of course it was."

They both chuckled until the moment passed and then Elliot held out his hands expectantly.

"So? I'm guessing you have some perps for me to identify?"

"Yes." Olivia reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a half a dozen photos. Four photos were of the men and women Janine had identified as the core of the conspiracy; the other two photos were of Janine and the man arrested on the scene, since identified as Fred Mauchly. Fred's picture was on top.

"Yep, I know this one all right. He almost kicked me to death." Elliot said this with a strange cheeriness that made Olivia uneasy. Elliot set the picture aside, satisfied.

The next picture made him frown.

"No, I don't know this one. Never saw him."

Elliot flipped to the next picture.

"Don't know her, either."

Elliot's frown deepened at the next photo, also unknown to him, and he flung the picture after that one across the sheets with irritation.

"Olivia, I don't know any of these people. What is this? Who did you get your intel from?"

Elliot looked at the last picture and nearly jumped off the mattress.

"That's her! She's the one. She called all the shots. I mean, it was just her and this other guy. I never saw anyone else."

Olivia didn't want to say anything. She would have preferred for the world to end rather than speak again, but she didn't have that option.

"Elliot, she's the one who told us where you were and how to get you out."

"Why would she do that?"

Olivia realized that he must be under heavy sedation, otherwise he wouldn't have to ask that question.

"Because we gave her full immunity. We had too! She said she was the only one- and now we know she wasn't lying about this- the only one who could tell us where you were and how to find you. She told me she was new to all this."

Olivia's attempt to keep Elliot calm in spite of this information proved unsuccessful. On the other side of the room, a young nurse came in for her rounds.

"You made that deal with this woman? Do you know what she did, Olivia? Kidnapping, rape, torture- a kid is dead because of her. And now she's going to walk? How could you do that?"

The nurse scribbled on her clipboard uncomfortably and inspected Elliot's IV before turning her back to the pair.

"Looks like it's time for another dose. The doctor doesn't want you getting all worked up." The nurse's audience did not appreciate her vaguely condescending tone. She turned from a rolling cart to face Elliot and Olivia again, this time with a syringe in hand, ready to inject through the IV.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Elliot demanded.

"Just a little something to help you relax, Mr. Stabler."

With one fluid motion, Elliot swung his arm around and managed to pull the IV out of his arm while knocking the syringe out of the nurse's hand, sending it tripping across the floor. The nurse gasped and rocked back on her heels before regaining her footing with a determined stance. Olivia was now on her feet as well, telling the nurse to back off, but her warning went unheard under the nurse's commanding voice.

"Mr. Stabler, if you don't calm down right now, we're going to have to restrain you."

This threat pushed Elliot over what little edge he had been holding on to, and he caught the nurse's arm in his adrenaline-fueled clutches.

"Nobody's controlling me with any needles, and nobody's tying me down. I'll kill you first."

"Elliot, stop it. Let her go!" Olivia joined in the human tug of war going on between Elliot and the nurse, trying to pry Elliot's fingers off the young woman's rapidly reddening arm.

"Don't touch him. Everyone take your hands off him!" Dr. Huang could be loud when he chose to be, and his sudden presence made everyone stop. Olivia backed away and the nurse removed her free hand from the struggle, but Elliot maintained his hold on the nurse. Dr. Huang stepped closer with respectful deliberation.

"Elliot, your arm is bleeding. Would it be okay if the nurse patched up that wound for you?"

Elliot finally loosened his grip and turned his attention from Dr. Huang to the nurse, confused, as though waking up from a dream.

"Oh. Yeah. Sure, that'd be fine."

The nurse regained her equilibrium and she mechanically went about the task of finding some gauze and tape. Elliot's confusion switched to embarrassment, and he was still apologizing to the nurse when Olivia left the room wordlessly. This investigation was not over yet- not until she found a way to put Janine behind bars for the rest of her life.

--

With fingers laced behind her head, Casey allowed Olivia to make her case; they had to be able to charge Janine for the things she had done. They could not allow her to hide behind the agreement granting her immunity from prosecution, and they could not, under any circumstances, allow that woman back on the streets. Casey enjoyed the moment and considered drawing it out, but she knew Olivia had been through enough strain lately and didn't need to be toyed with.

"You know, I get the feeling sometimes that even now, you guys don't think very much of me. Do you really think I would have signed off on that deal if I didn't have an ace in the hole?"

Casey was gloating, and this intrigued Olivia; it was a side of the prosecutor she had not really seen before.

"I suggest you read the immunity agreement carefully. I think you'll notice something very interesting."

Casey slid a file folder holding the mutually signed immunity agreement across her desk to Olivia. Olivia snapped up the paper and read hungrily.

"Oh, I see." She glanced up at Casey with the first genuine smile Olivia had known for a long time.

--

The next morning Casey greeted Janine and her attorney, arriving for a pre-arranged meeting during which Casey would obtain a full statement in preparation for the trial of Janine's accomplice, in case he went to trial. The immunity deal required Janine to describe the crimes that were committed, even if it meant implicating herself. As long as Janine held up her end of the deal, Casey would not prosecute her, no matter what horrors she had participated in or even personally inflicted.

Janine's attorney stumbled to a stop when they entered Casey's office. There was another person present when there shouldn't have been. The defense attorney recognized the extraneous presence and knew something was wrong.

"Excuse me, but what is this? What is he doing here?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you would already know Mr. Harris." Casey directed the next sentence to Janine. "He's a Federal prosecutor."

Casey shut the door behind Janine and her attorney, and gestured for them to sit down.

"Since your statement is going to become a matter of public record anyway, I figured you wouldn't mind Mr. Harris sitting in."

"I really don't know much. I can tell you some of what went on, but I was still sort of an outsider in this group." Janine said.

"Yeah, you can drop that act. We know you and Mr. Mauchly were the only two people who actively conspired, kidnapped and tortured the victims. And that of the two of you, you were the dominant one."

Janine's demeanor drastically changed, and now she appeared almost flattered.

"Who told you that? Fred? He was the one in charge, not me."

Casey couldn't help but pause at this extraordinary statement; she almost wondered out loud if Janine could be insane, and then thought better of it.

"Are you really so consumed by your own pathetic megalomania that you haven't considered that there are eight human beings who can testify first hand about you and what you did?"

"So what? What difference does it make? I read that agreement top to bottom. Even if I didn't tell the whole story about the extent of my involvement, you still can't do anything to me as long as I continue to cooperate fully with you."

The defense attorney put a hand on his client's shoulder. He remained anxious about where this conversation was leading, and knew that his client would be well served to keep her words to a minimum now.

"Janine, I think you ought to be quiet for a min-"

"You be quiet." Janine straightened her jacket and continued, "Don't worry. I plan to testify in full to keep my deal in place. So I did it. I picked those boys like fruit from a vine and I ate them alive. And I especially can't wait to tell a courtroom full of people what I did to your boy."

"Fine. Then you can start now; after all, that's what you're here for. Here, I'll start you off with the last person you took- the official medical report on Elliot Stabler: concussion, dehydration, cracked ribs, cracked tibia, and multiple contusions, not to mention the drugs and their as yet unknown long-term effects. You want to pick up from the second to the last man you took? It only gets worse as we go back in time to the earlier abductions."

"Wait a minute. You never answered my question- why is he here? Is there some reason for a Federal prosecutor to get involved in this?" At her attorney's words, Janine became visibly concerned for the first time.

"No way. I didn't break any Federal laws."

Now it was Casey's turn to explain the facts of life to Janine.

"That's where you're wrong. Before I would agree to this kind of deal, I had a good talk with some of the other investigators in the state and then I had a talk with my friend, Mr. Harris here. On at least one other occasion, aside from your latest excursion, you transported some of your victims to some sort of party. We know you liked to use your victims sometimes as public entertainment. I'm willing to bet there were other incidents like that, too, and now that Fred is talking to us, it's just a matter of time before we find out about those."

"And?" Janine, still defiant.

"And, given the facts of your crimes, my friend the Federal prosecutor here, is willing to prosecute you under Federal kidnapping charges."

"All right, that's it." The defense attorney held up his hand. "My client isn't saying another word. You can't force her to incriminate herself."

"She doesn't have to say another word. But then, that would violate the immunity deal she agreed to, leaving the state free to prosecute her with impunity."

The defense attorney scanned his client's copy of the agreement.

"She didn't have an attorney to look this over for her. She didn't understand what she was signing."

"Your client had her rights read to her when she was picked up, and she waived her right to counsel; I have that that signature right here." Casey held up her paper for emphasis. "Also, she was the one who insisted on getting an immunity deal and she dictated the terms of that deal. She can't back out of it now just because it isn't turning out the way she wanted it to. See, I am starting to believe that she wanted to get caught first, on her own timetable, so that she could get the best shot at making the best deal. Well, that's what she got, so I really don't think a judge is going to look favorably on a connived set-up gone wrong. You spread those rumors about a mass conspiracy, didn't you? And that's why you took a cop, isn't it? You planned this exit strategy from the beginning."

"What's going on?" Janine directed the question at her attorney, but Casey answered.

"Kidnapping is a state crime, but only so long as the Federal government decides not to take over the case, which they can do at any time. Given the egregious circumstances, the Federal government has decided to make this matter their business. Their authority supersedes mine. Unfortunately, you made a deal with me, not with the Federal government; I have no authority to make any deals on their behalf, even if I had wanted to."

Janine started to say something but faltered, so Casey continued.

"Basically you have two choices at this point. One: you can choose to live up to the terms of the immunity agreement and give me your full statement. And by the way, if you try to lie about that, we'll find out and the immunity deal is void. Then, once you're done giving your statement to the state, you will be arrested on Federal kidnapping charges.

"Or, two: with respect to the Federal charges that would be brought against you once you describe your role in the kidnapping and torture of nine men, one of whom is now dead, you can choose to advance your Fifth Amendment rights. If you do so, however, your deal with the state is void, and instead of Mr. Harris having you arrested, I will. So, still eager to brag about what you did to 'my boy?'"

The defense attorney turned up his palms.

"What kind of new deal can we cut here? After all, my client did identify other participants in this conspiracy."

"Yes, and our detectives have talked to those people. It seems that, at best, they had only incidental contact with and/or knowledge of the existence of the boys, and there is no evidence so far that they had any actual knowledge that your client's victims were the missing college boys. If your client still wants to testify against them, that's fine, but then I guess that would mean she's taken option number one, in which case, Mr. Harris can start drawing up his indictment papers this afternoon."

Janine's attorney turned to the Federal prosecutor.

"What kind of deal are we looking for here?"

"I don't make deals with kidnappers. With us, she's looking, at the minimum, at three counts of kidnapping. Add in the aggravating circumstance of sexual exploitation, we pretty much have enough to put her away for life. And unless you can think of something I haven't, I don't see any reason not to do just that."

The defense attorney rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You know, Janine, you're probably better off taking your chances with the Federal charges. There will be fewer of them, and we might be able to get the sentences to run concurrently."

"No! No way. I had a deal. I'm not supposed to go to jail. Whatever you want from me, testimony, evidence, I'll do it. Just, please, don't send me to prison." Her pleading was sincere now.

Casey advanced two forms towards Janine.

"You have two options. I'd appreciate it if you would go ahead and make your decision now. I have more important things to do today than sit in the same room with you."

--

Within a couple of days, Casey found herself leaning against a cabinet, relating the story of her encounter with Janine to an office full of interested detectives. Elliot was one of the few sitting down for the story, with his crutches propped against the Captain's desk.

"So what did she do then?" Olivia asked.

"She took her attorney's advice and chose the prize behind door number two. They'll probably plead her out to avoid a trial, but it'll be a lifetime before she's even up for parole."

"And when they do have that parole hearing, I'll be there to remind the board why she's behind bars." Elliot said, absently scratching his chest.

"I'm sure you won't be the only one."

Casey turned to leave the office when Olivia caught her.

"I really want to thank you. You were thinking when I wasn't, and you really saved a lot of people a lot of anguish. I just- thanks."

"You did your job, I did mine. And, you're welcome."


End file.
